Russian government says “nyet” to AllofMP3.com

As part of a bilateral trade agreement with the US, the Russian government has …

The international noose around AllofMP3.com has been tightening for some time, and now it appears to have closed: the Russian government has agreed to shut down the site.

Russian and US negotiators have agreed on a bilateral trade agreement that should pave the way for Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization, and one major part of the deal concerned intellectual property issues. Russia has agreed to a set of terms for fighting optical disk piracy, strengthening border enforcement against counterfeiters, bringing their laws into agreement with international standards, and protecting pharmaceutical test data. But the biggest news is that the Russians have agreed to shut down "websites that permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works," according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. AllofMP3.com is specifically named in the agreement as an example site.

The Russian government must stop collection societies in the country from acting without the permission of rights-holders—a clear dig at licensing group ROMS. AllofMP3.com has claimed for some time that they are legal under Russian law because all of their works have been licensed by ROMS, and ROMS itself says that it "carries out its activity on the basis of the powers given directly by the Law, irrespective of the presence or absence of a contract with a rightsholder." In essence, ROMS has given out licenses to music without any permission from the copyright owners to do so.

Whether this is legal has been the subject of heated discussion for years, with AllofMP3.com most vocally asserting that it is. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry disagrees, saying, "Under the copyright laws of virtually every country in the world, including Russia, it is illegal to distribute recordings without the permission of the rights owners." ROMS was booted from CISAC, an international organization that represents 217 worldwide copyright societies, back in 2004.

Whatever the truth, Russia has agreed to modify its laws by June 1, 2007 to clarify that such activity is illegal. It will also implement the 1996 WIPO Internet treaties, and will take enforcement action against Russian websites that violate IP laws.

The agreement was announced on November 19, but as recently as yesterday, November 28, AllofMP3 issued a combative press release arguing that the service is both fair to artists and legal in Russia. Mediaservices, the group that owns AllofMP3, even went so far as to issue a legal analysis of US law, claiming that US consumers have every right to download music from the site.

"If the RIAA had done its homework," said Vadim Mamotin, Director General of the company, "it would have discovered that even under U.S. law, consumers apparently have a legal basis to purchase music from AllofMP3. There is absolutely no legal basis for the campaign against AllofMP3."

The IFPI has not yet responded publicly to the news, but the RIAA's Neil Turkewitz said in a statement, "The US-Russia Agreement makes it clear that the US expects Russia to be in compliance with its TRIPS [Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights] obligations prior to concluding Russia?s WTO accession. Permitting a site like allofmp3.com to operate is clearly not consistent with TRIPS, and the Agreement therefore calls for it to be shut down."

"Contrary to reports that are circulating," he added, "allofmp3.com has not been given 6 months to continue to operate, and we fully expect the Russian authorities to quickly take action to prevent the continued theft of intellectual property."

No one's yet sure how this will play out. The site is still up and running, but its days appear to be numbered. If you have any credit left in the site, now would be an excellent time to use it up.